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Responses to A Short Introduction to Cloud Platforms#Friday, August 22, 2008

It’s been interesting to see the initial responses to my paper on cloud platforms, and I’m glad that people seem to find it useful. I have been a bit surprised, however, that some readers are viewing it as news about Microsoft’s direction in this area. Mary Jo Foley, for example, whose blog I read religiously, appeared to view the paper as offering insight into Microsoft’s plans for cloud computing platforms.

Sorry, but that was a non-goal. Instead, the paper presents my personal perspective, putting forth what I believe is a useful model for thinking about application platforms—on-premises and in the cloud—then illustrating that model with technologies from various vendors.

The paper was sponsored by Microsoft, so I suppose I was naïve not to think that people would read more into it. Yet the truth is that the Microsoft people who sponsored the work disagreed with me on more than one issue.

Still, the paper might stimulate discussion about the area, perhaps boosting people’s interest in advance of Microsoft’s cloud platform unveiling at the PDC later this year. In any case, I encourage you not to assume that the view I present in the paper is Microsoft’s—it’s not.